Online Entertainment That's For The Taking
For all the money people spend on technology gadgets, it's about time they got something without spending a cent. In this week's column, I've compiled a cheat sheet to some of the most popular free digital content that isn't always easy to find. This includes books, music, movies, TV shows, catalogs, magazines and apps, available on mobile devices as well as computer desktops.
This guide is divided into the four major content companies you're likely to buy from: Apple, Amazon, Google and Barnes & Noble. The free offerings include content people will actually want to download, such as songs from new and established music artists and hit TV shows. I also included some broader-based websites that aim to help people sort through vast collections of free content.
Apple
Apple's iTunes Store has been a hit from the start, simplifying the process of buying music with a click of the mouse and saved credit-card information. But these clicks can add up quickly if you aren't careful.
Every Tuesday, starting around 12 a.m. Eastern Time, Apple offers a free Single of the Week on its iTunes store. This week it's 'D谷j角 Vu' by Coco Jones. In addition, Free Songs are offered every so often on a case-by-case basis, like on Feb. 19 when 'The Clock' by the View was offered. Once in a while, albums are available to stream for free about a week before they're available for purchase in the iTunes Store. This week, I listened free of charge to Justin Timberlake's entire new album, 'The 20/20 Experience,' which can be preordered now for $10.99. (The free listening offer ends March 19.)
One spot on the iTunes Store houses all free content in one place, including music, movie featurettes (short clips of films or Q&As with a cast), featured TV shows, apps, books and podcasts. You can find the Free on iTunes page at http://tinyurl.com/boxckdn.
Amazon
Owners of Amazon's Kindle e-reader are constantly on the lookout for new reading material, especially if it's free. A helpful summary page that lists all of Amazon's free book options can be found at http://tinyurl.com/aaq5yd6. People who pay $79 a year for Amazon Prime membership and who own Kindles can borrow books from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. This library represents just 300,000 books of Amazon's 1.8 million total, but it's a plus that these books are borrowed for free without due dates.
Amazon's MP3 Store offers a free music playlist for the month. An Artists on the Rise page highlights and allows free downloads of songs by these new artists. The list of March songs includes 12 tracks; all can be previewed or downloaded for free.
Prime Instant Video, Amazon's video-subscription model that comes with the $79 annual Prime fee, lets people stream over 38,000 movies and TV episodes.
Amazon tries to promote a different paid app for free each day. These daily deals can be accessed via the Amazon Appstore for Android on the Kindle Fire, mobile devices, Android tablets or PCs. Past examples include Quickoffice Pro, SwiftKey X and Angry Birds Rio.
Google's Play Store is big on free stuff. Each day, a Free Song of the Day is given away and this can be found on the store's Music home page about halfway down, or at http://tinyurl.com/cqdhj9a. Like Amazon, Google promotes a playlist of free music each month, called 'Antenna.' Random sales appear in the Play Store every so often, like a global-dance-tracks sale that is going on right now, including 12 free songs.
Free episodes of TV shows can be downloaded from the Play Store. Current shows include 'Revenge,' 'Once Upon A Time' and 'Red Widow.' The Play Store often has sales on collections of shows. For the past week it offered 85 free TV show pilots.
The Play Store carries free public-domain books and ranks the Top Free books in a list, including 'The Time Machine' by H.G. Wells. These are found on the store's Books home page. Digital versions of over 115 magazine titles can be tried free for 14 or 30 days at a Free Trials page.
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble's Free Fridays program offers its Nook users a different paid book and app for free every Friday. (Last Friday, the free app was OfficeSuite Professional 7, which costs $14.99.) Users can download these free books and apps via the store at Nook.com. There are also thousands of free books and apps available at the Nook store when customers type 'free books' into the search bar.
Free 14-day trials for over 700 magazine titles are available for Nooks as well is access to 60 free catalogs.
Work-For-You Websites
If you're an Amazon customer and don't want to bother hunting through Amazon's website for free content, numerous websites compile lists of free books for users. FreeBookSifter.com is bare-bones, but has 26 categories on the left side, including its useful top category, Added Today.
OneHundredFreeBooks.com is a visually pleasing site that includes categories like handpicked and newest. It even lets you sign up via email to receive free book suggestions in your inbox.
ManyBooks.net sorts books by new titles, popular and recommended; it also includes a search box at the top.
If you're tired of seeing a chunk of your credit-card bill go toward digital content each month, take advantage of these free digital options.
Katherine Boehret
人
們在技術產品上花了大把大把的錢，現在該是空手套白狼的時候了。在本周的欄目裡，我編輯了一份速查單，上面都是一些最受歡迎、又不太容易找到的免費數字內容，這其中包括圖書、音樂、電影、電視節目、商品目錄、雜志和應用程序，通過台式電腦和移動設備都可以獲取這些資源。本 指南按照你可能去購物的公司，將內容分為四大部分：蘋果(Apple)、亞馬遜(Amazon)、谷歌(Google)和巴諾(Barnes & Noble)。免費的內容包括人們實際想要下載的東西，比如剛嶄露頭角的或已成名的音樂藝術家的歌曲、熱門電視節目。我還擴大范圍，收錄了一些旨在幫助人 們整理收藏大量免費內容的網站。
蘋果
蘋果的音樂商店(iTunes Store)從一開始就炙手可熱，它把購買音樂的過程簡化為只需鼠標點擊一下已保存過的信用卡信息這樣簡單，不過你一不小心，點擊的數量就會迅速增加。
每 周二，美國東部時間午夜0點左右開始，蘋果都會在它的音樂商店推出一首免費的“本周單曲”(Single of the Week)，本周的曲目是科科•瓊斯(Coco Jones)的“Deja Vu”。此外，蘋果也常常會根據具體情況推出免費歌曲，比如2月19號就推出了 the View唱的"The Clock"。有時，一些專輯可以免費試聽一周左右，之後才在蘋果音樂商店開始銷售。本周，我就免費聽了賈斯汀•汀布萊克(Justin Timberlake)的整張新專輯"The 20/20 Experience"，該專輯現在可以以10.99美元的價格預訂。（免費試聽活動於3月19日結束。）
蘋果音樂商店裡有一個地方集中了所有的免費內容，包括音樂、電影短片（電影片段或演員陣容問與答），特色電視節目、應用程序、圖書和播客。你可以進入http://tinyurl.com/boxckdn，找到蘋果音樂商店的免費資源頁面。
亞馬遜
Barns & Noble
3月8日（周五），巴諾的免費應用是OfficeSuite Professional 7，價值14.99美元。
亞馬遜的MP3商店提供有一個月度免費音樂播放列表。一個“上升期的藝術家”頁面重點標明了新興藝術家的歌曲，並被允許免費下載。3月份的歌曲列表中有12首歌，全都可以進行預覽或免費下載。
Prime Instant Video是繳納了79美元的亞馬遜金牌會員年費之後可以享受到的亞馬遜的視頻訂制模式，人們可以在線收看38,000部電影和電視劇集。
亞 馬遜試圖每天免費推出一款原本需要付費的應用程序，這些每日特惠可以通過裝在Kindle Fire、移動設備、安卓平板電腦以及PC機上的亞馬遜安卓應用商店(Amazon Appstore for Android)來獲取。過去推出過的免費軟件包括Quickoffice Pro辦公軟件、SwiftKey X輸入法和憤怒的小鳥之裡約大冒險(Angry Birds Rio)。
谷歌
谷歌的娛樂商店(Play Store)提供大量的免費東西。每天都有一首“今日免費歌曲”(Free Song of the Day)贈送，用戶可以在商店音樂主頁的頁面中段或者在http://tinyurl.com/cqdhj9a這個地址找到它。和亞馬遜一樣，谷歌每月也推出了一個名為“天線”(Antenna)的免費音樂播放列表。谷歌娛樂商店偶爾會有隨機促銷活動，比如，現在正在推出一個“世界舞曲”促銷活動，其中包括12首免費歌曲。
免 費的電視節目劇集可以從谷歌娛樂商店下載。目前可以下載的節目包括《復仇》(Revenge)、《童話鎮》(Once Upon A Time)和《血玫瑰》(Red Widow)。谷歌娛樂商店經常打折銷售電視節目集錦。在過去的一周裡，商店提供了85個免費的電視試播節目。
谷 歌娛樂商店裡提供免費的公共領域圖書並推出了一個最佳免費圖書排行榜，H•G•威爾斯(H.G. Wells)寫的《時光機器》(The Time Machine)也榜上有名。這些在商店的圖書主頁上可以找到，在免費試讀(Free Trials)頁面上，超過115種雜志的電子版可以試看14天或30天。
巴諾
巴諾的周五免費活動 (Free Fridays)每周五都向它的Nook電子書用戶免費提供一本不同的原本需要付費的圖書和應用程序。（3月8日，巴諾的免費應用是 OfficeSuite Professional 7，價值14.99美元。）用戶可以通過Nook.com這個地址進入商店，下載這些免費圖書和應用程序。如果客戶在搜索條裡鍵入“免費圖書”字樣，還可 以在Nook商店裡找到數以千計的免費圖書和應用程序。
Nook商店裡有700多本可以免費試看14天的雜志，另外，用戶還可以進入60條免費目錄。
對你有用的網站
如 果你是亞馬遜客戶，又不想費心在亞馬遜網站上搜尋免費內容，那麼你可以訪問其它很多為用戶編輯了免費圖書清單的網站。 FreeBookSifter.com是一個極其簡單的網站，但是它的左邊有26個圖書分類，其中包括位於頂端的一個非常有用的類別“今日新增圖書” (Added Today)。
OneHundredFreeBooks.com是一個令人賞心悅目的網站，它的圖書分類包括“精選圖書”和“最新圖書”等類別。它甚至可以讓你通過電子郵件注冊，以便你在收件箱接收免費圖書推薦信息。
ManyBooks.net網站是按照“新書”、“暢銷書”和“推薦圖書”來進行圖書分類的，網站頂部還有一個搜索框。
如果你不想看到自己每個月因為購買數字內容而產生的一大堆信用卡賬單，那就好好利用這些免費的數字資源吧。
Katherine Boehret
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